


Who Is Left

by ceywoozle



Series: In War [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, HLV, M/M, Minor Violence, Missing Scene, TW: Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-19 23:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2406233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceywoozle/pseuds/ceywoozle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks before Christmas, Sherlock comes home from the hospital. John is there to take care of him of course. John is always there to take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

Two weeks before Christmas, Sherlock comes home.

John, who for two weeks has been nearly silent, smiles as he watches that first deliberate step over the threshold of 221B. He stands in the hallway and feels the pressure mounting behind his ribcage, fighting its way up his trachea, making it hard to breathe. He thinks he's going to start laughing, but he knows it's the kind of laughter that will end in with him in hysterics on the floor so he stifles it, trying to force the oxygen past the pain in his chest.

When Sherlock turns around, his curls too long, the stiff brush of hair that's nearly turned into a full beard standing out stark in contrast to the pallor of his skin, John has managed to school his features enough that barely a smile lifts the corner of his mouth.

“Tea?” Sherlock asks. A conscientious host. “I can make—”

John snorts. Doesn't even bother responding. He goes to the kitchen and fills the kettle.

Behind him, he can hear Sherlock shuffling around, inspecting the flat as though he's expecting some change in it. Wonders if he's searching for traces of John's presence.

He won't find any. John thinks of the tiny rental unit in Leytonstone he's been staying in. Pictures the small signs of his habitation, the stack of novels in the white sitting room, the tight corners of the precisely made bed. Sherlock won't find him here. What little time John's spent away from the hospital he's spent at the clinic, working because he has to. Because that little furnished flat in Leytonstone is costing money, and the food and coffee he brings to Sherlock and the Oyster card he uses to get back and forth between those three points of his life: _hospital, clinic, flat, hospital, clinic, flat, hospital..._

It's a never ending circle, broken now. The sudden realisation of its loss leaves John disoriented.

He hasn't seen Mary, not since that night in 221B when they'd all been there together. It feels like a very long time ago. He doesn't know what she's doing for money. He hasn't called and he hasn't been back to their shared flat. She's called him. Every day since he found out. Written emails too, to the case account because she knows he still checks that regardless of the fact that Sherlock is in no shape to accept anything.

He hasn't responded to any of them and he hasn't mentioned them to Sherlock and he wonders if Sherlock knows regardless. If there's a list that Mycroft brings at the end of every day, filled with the details of John's life, the things John doesn't choose to tell. He's being paranoid, he knows, but he can feel the cameras following him where he goes, that telltale click at the beginning of every phone call. The only thing he doesn't know is if it really is Mycroft. He hopes so. God, he hopes so.

The water roils noisily in the kettle. The cups are on the counter, the sugar waiting at the bottom of one. John is staring at them, listening to the water, listening to the quieter sounds of Sherlock prowling the flat, observing, deducing. He wonders if Mrs Hudson has been up to dust. If she's vacuumed in the intervening weeks. He wonders if the small smudge of blood is still on the carpet, marking the place that Sherlock had fallen that night. It is magnified in his mind, lewd and dramatic in his memory. He knows it wasn't that large, that single glance he had gotten of it before following the paramedics out the door, leaving Mary behind, leaving Mrs Hudson fluttering and bewildered in the hallway. It had been a smudge, nothing more, a slight brown mark among the patterns of the rug, barely visible. But when he dreams of it it is an ever-growing pool, spilling over the carpet and onto the hardwood, lapping at the legs of the chairs and seeping out of the cracks in the wall and dripping onto the pavement outside until Baker Street has turned into Smithfield and the blood is pooling, climbing up the pale feet of St Bart's until John is drowning and he wakes up, unable to breathe.

“John?”

He realises he's clutching the counter, shoulders hunched against the room and he straightens, forcing himself back into the room, pushing every sign of that night from his expression. The kettle clicks off and he pours the water.

“Yeah,” he says.

Sherlock doesn't respond right away. John leaves the cups and turns to face him. He's leaning against the dividing wall into the sitting room and John is struck by how exhausted he looks and he is angry with himself for not doing anything to help him though he knows, practically, that there is nothing he can do except what he's doing now. Being here. Making tea. _What else?_

“You going to shower? I want you in bed.”

Sherlock's lips twitch and his eyebrows arch above his eyes. John can feel himself flushing.

“Yeah, that's not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant,” Sherlock says, amusement lacing the slurred consonants of his speech. He looks terrible, trying to be lewd.

“Git,” John says, to cover his embarrassment, the redness of his face. He'll never hear the end of this and he doesn't trust himself with that specific brand of teasing. He's on edge now, exhausted as well. He hasn't let himself think too deeply, hasn't allowed himself to examine anything too closely. Mary. Sherlock. He can't let himself. He has kept himself to his routine, to the perfect circle of his existence— _hospital, clinic, flat_ —and hasn't deviated a step outside of it until today. Until this moment when he is back in 221B and there is Sherlock, watching him from the sitting room and needing him. Laughing at him. And he doesn't know if he remembers how to deal with this. It was a different life. A different John. A different Sherlock. A different Mary.

He pushes it aside. Not now. _Not now._

“Shower?” he asks again, letting impatience leak into his voice.

The smiles fades by increments from Sherlock's face but doesn't completely go away. He nods, grunts his assent. John doesn't wait for more. Pours the milk in the tea and presses the mug into Sherlock's hand.

“I'll run the tap,” John says, and leaves him there.

 


	2. Two

John goes to the bathroom. The sound the light switch makes is overloud and he swears he hears the buzz of the bulb. He makes a mental note to change it then remembers that he doesn't live here anymore. He hates this. It's been months. Years. This hasn't been his home for a lifetimes and he despises himself for how easily he slips back into the habit of being here. He goes to the tub and turns on the tap, feeling the water gradually warm beneath his hand, then pulls the knob to turn on the shower head. He slides the curtain closed and turns to get Sherlock only to give a startled shout, his heart leaping violently behind his ribcage, because Sherlock is standing in the doorway watching him.

“Jesus bloody Christ, you wanker,” John swears at him.

Again, those eyebrows, and John wants to rip them off his face.

“Water's warm,” John snaps, wants to stalk out of the bathroom but Sherlock is filling the doorway into the hall and John thinks of brushing past him, of touching him, and he can't. He can't.

He veers abruptly left and is suddenly in Sherlock's bedroom. He shuts the glass door between them harder than he needs to and the pane rattles in its frame.

For a minute he just stands there. The rush of water muffled as Sherlock shuts the hall door behind him, sealing off the bathroom from prying eyes and draughts. John is far too aware of the semi-translucence of the wavy glass pane behind him. The spill of light at his back. He listens to the softer sounds of clothing being stripped and discarded. The grunts of effort as muscles are tested, ligaments stretched. They are deep, guttural. Utterly masculine. John's jaw is clenched tightly and he stares blindly into the dimness of the bedroom and remembers the last time he'd stood here. Years ago. Right after Sherlock had jumped and John had come here looking. For answers. For some question to ask other than _Why?_ He had stood in the doorway with the light from the hall bleeding past him and making shadows in the corners, creating the illusion of a presence in the mounded sheets on the unmade bed. He hadn't wanted to turn on the lights, hadn't wanted to confirm to himself that the shadows were empty and the sheets merely that, with no Sherlock smothered in their folds. In the end he hadn't been able to do it, had turned around and left, had walked from the flat and hadn't come back for two years and four months when he had finally come to tell Mrs Hudson that he was getting married.

 _Married._ Jesus Christ. Just like that he can feel the rage, the familiar helpless horror rising up in him and he pushes it back down with a silent snarl. He can feel his face twisting with the effort and he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to eradicate everything from his sight. He wants the darkness, the blackness of the space behind his lids, but all he can see is a bloodstain growing impossibly large on a patterned rug.

He listens to the water running, the pattern of its fall broken as Sherlock steps into its stream. He listens the wet sound of soap being lathered, the loud thunk of it falling, the soft groan as Sherlock bends to pick it up. He listens to the almost silent sigh as Sherlock stands beneath the spray and doesn't move. Doesn't move for a long time. John stands on the other side of the door with his back to the light and listens to the stillness on the other side.

It seems like a long time before there is movement again and abruptly silence as the water is shut off and there is only the drip and squeak of clean skin on wet porcelain. The hush of the towel against flesh. Nothing and then the bathroom sink being filled, the click of a blade being inserted into a heavy steel razor. John realises that all his senses are on high alert.

There is silence. Interminable. Stretching on forever. And then, finally, the scrape of the blade on stiff hair. A long, careful stroke, cut short by a sudden oath and the sound of steel hitting the tile floor.

He hasn't realised he's moved till the door is half open and he is staring at Sherlock who is staring back at him, a towel around his waist, blue eyes wide and startled and blood dripping down his chin.

“Shit. Sorry,” John says, but he's still standing there, watching the blood trace a line down Sherlock's neck. It pools above his collarbone and stays there. A tiny amount. It's already stopped. John can't stop looking at it.

_“John?”_

His eyes snap up. Sherlock watches him narrowly, his voice is impatient. It's obvious this isn't the first time he's said John's name.

“Yeah. Sorry. I. Thought you needed help.”

Sherlock stares at him for a moment longer and as one they look at the razor on the floor, Sherlock's hands shaking slightly at his side.

“Fine. Tired,” Sherlock says, and John watches as he braces himself on the edge of the counter in order to bend down.

John is there before him, a hand reaching out, snatching the old fashioned razor from the floor. He stands there with it in his grip, not offering it to Sherlock who faces him with his hand out, waiting.

“Your hand's shaking,” John says.

“Just tired, John,” Sherlock snaps, exasperated.

“It can wait till tomorrow,” John says. He is trying not to look at the blood. The effort of keeping his eyes on Sherlock's face is tremendous.

“Don't be ridiculous,” Sherlock says. He wriggles his fingers, impatient, expectant.

“I'll do it,” John says, and can't believe the words from his own mouth. He's an idiot. He's about to backtrack, laugh it off, except Sherlock, after a single swift look, gives a shrug and nods.

“Fine,” he says, and turns his back to lean with unexpected weariness on the counter.

He is pale and exhausted and John knows this should wait till tomorrow, when they've both had a chance to collect themselves a bit. But he's holding the razor now and Sherlock is waiting for him to start, to finish. John nods and swallows.

“Yeah, alright.”

 


	3. Three

It is unsteady, that first stroke. He feels like he's going to fuck this up, but how hard is it to just shave everything? He's done this. He does this every morning. Sherlock's beard is sparse, making it easy for the single blade to run through. John's own hair grows thick and long, easily out of control. Sherlock's isn't like that. His is like a boy going through puberty. It's almost endearing except that it's chin hair and John recognises the absurdity of attaching any sort of emotion to it.

The second stroke is stronger, leaving a clean line on Sherlock's white neck.

The light bulb is buzzing, he's sure of it now. It's niggling at the edge of his hearing and driving him a little bit mad. Sherlock doesn't seem to notice. His face is pointed up towards the ceiling and his eyes are closed against the brightness. His breaths are deep and long and John counts them, is incredibly aware of each rise and fall of shoulders and chest and it is a struggle to keep his own breath independent of the rhythm Sherlock has unconsciously set. John is overly aware of the air in his own lungs, the act of breathing suddenly becoming a conscious act until he is forcing it, desperately attempting to hold to some kind of pattern. He can feel his heartbeat pattering outside of his control.

“John?”

John gives a gasp and looks up, breathless. Sherlock is staring at him. His neck is smooth and bare and the line of his jaw is once more defined. John doesn't even remember shaving it, but the razor in his hand is steady and the sink is half full of water, stubble clinging to the edges of the white porcelain.

“Don't move,” John says, raises the blade once more. He scrapes it in careful lines over Sherlock's chin.

He is more than half done. He rinses the blade in the sink, swishing it through the water, watching it lap over the edge and spill onto the counter.

“You didn't stay here,” Sherlock says. “While I was in hospital.”

John watches the dark hair swirling in the maelstrom he's created. It splashes onto his hand and leaves tiny black marks against his skin.

“John?”

“No,” John says. “I didn't.”

“Why not?”

“I don't live here.”

The blade is clean. He holds it up.

“Almost done,” he says.

He is careful, oh so careful. The blood is gone from Sherlock's chin and neck but a spot of it still rests in the hollow above his collarbone and John leaves it there while he shaves, aware of its shadow at the bottom edge of his periphery, an eyelash or an insect.

Sherlock is still, no longer facing upwards, his eyes open again. He keeps his jaw stiff while John slides the blade along his face and John is aware of blue eyes fixed on him. Observing, deducing. He rinses the blade, quickly this time, not giving Sherlock's mouth time to form a question.

When he is done, he steps back, stares at the man across from him, his familiarity revealed. So much easier, so much more difficult. He doesn't know if he can stay here much longer.

“Finished,” John says, leans past him and puts the razor beside the sink. “You can rinse.”

Sherlock lifts white hands. They encompass his jaw, slide smoothly down his neck.

“Thank you,” Sherlock says, and his voice is far too deep, the way it gets when he is being sincere.

“Yeah, alright,” John says, not looking him in the face, staring at the too white chest with it's bullet hole and its bit of blood in the hollow below the neck. One of those things is temporary and John lifts a hand, meaning to wipe it away, but somehow his fingers redirect themselves and the skin he touches is broken and rough, a little warmer than the flesh around it. Red and puckered and damaged.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, little more than a whisper, pressing forward, his palm flat on Sherlock's chest, covering that spot until he can't see it but he can feel it, can feel its edges pressing into his palm. “Jesus fucking Christ, Sherlock.”

“John,” Sherlock says and the syllable of his name splits half way through.

“I did this.” And he means it, the guilt crowding him and coming to the fore. He's kept it at bay so long but staring at the clear evidence of it it is impossible to forget. If only he hadn't listened. If only he'd been faster. If only he'd trusted himself. If only he'd never married her.

“Don't be an idiot,” Sherlock snaps, annoyed, as if he'd heard the litany of John's self-blame in his own head.

“She's my wife—”

“Shut up, John.”

“Sherlock, Christ—”

“Oh for God's sake.”

And Sherlock kisses him.

A sudden hard pressure against his mouth. Awkward and dry and misplaced, spilling a little too far onto his chin.

It is a heartbeat. Maybe less. Over almost before John realises it's happened at all and he doesn't notice right away when Sherlock's pulled away because he's closed his eyes and his senses are overwhelmed with the sound of his own heart, vying against the emptiness of his lungs. It feels like years before he is able to breathe again.

“Sher—”

“I need to rinse,” Sherlock says, already turned away, and John stares at the back of his neck, at the flush of red creeping out from under the too-long curls. He is bent over the sink, his face covered by his hands. His back, its scars familiar by now from the weeks spent in hospital through a seemingly endless number of bandage changes, take on the glare of newness again and John has to physically restrain himself from reaching out and touching them, testing their edges and identifying each one. Sherlock's told him nothing about that time, shutting down completely when John comes anywhere near.

John had given up, aware of the deep well of his own required privacy, the mangled tissue of his own shoulder, the fine lines of his history scrawled across his body. It is a private book, a journal he's not prepared to publicise. Sherlock's never asked and John swears to give him the same courtesy, while at the same time hoping that one day he won't need to ask at all.

John stares at Sherlock now, reading those marks, aware of the breach that he is blatantly taking advantage of. He reads a stab wound, the marks of a whip, the slow bloom of a grazed bullet. He reads the offered timeline like the rings of a tree, two years ago, three years ago, ten years ago. They're mostly white, only two of them still showing vaguely brown against the pallor of Sherlock's skin, but even they are more than a year and half old.

He is aware suddenly that he is being watched, Sherlock eyes wide and blue in the mirror, observing his scrutiny and John, his eyes lifting, meets that gaze, guilty and ashamed without quite knowing why.

“Yes,” Sherlock says.

John frowns. Wonders if he's said something without realising, some stray thought given unconscious voice. But Sherlock is talking again.

“Yes,” he repeats. “I'll tell you. Not now, though.” He waves a half-hearted hand at nothing in particular. “I'm tired,” he says, frowning, almost puzzled at this new development in his life.

John reacts immediately, understanding his cue.

“Bed,” he says firmly, reaches to touch Sherlock's arm but stops, remembers that he's wearing only a towel.

“Bed,” he says again, absently. Takes a step back. Sherlock has turned around, is facing him now, but his eyes are heavy and glazed over. He is exhausted.

“Your room is still free,” Sherlock says.

 _It's not my room,_ John thinks but doesn't say out loud. He merely shakes his head. Hums his dissent.

“Sofa. Call if you need something, yeah?”

He doesn't wait for an answer, steps quickly past Sherlock and into the hall. His feet sound far too loud on the hardwood floor and he is relieved when he passes into the kitchen, the linoleum muffling some of the complaints of the house. He stops at the counter where his tea is still sitting. Cold now. He doesn't care. He leans against the sink and drinks it while he listens to the sound of Sherlock. The click of the bathroom light switching off. The groaning of the floor. The tap of bare feet on hardwood and then the quieter shuffle as he reaches the area rug by the bed. The soft sigh and the groan as he lowers himself down and then the sound of bed springs and sheets being moved, of a naked body shifting among the covers and getting settled and John imagines every movement in his head, the limbs collecting themselves into an organised sprawl, his head with the curls still damp pressing back into its familiar place on the pillow. John knows it. Had spent ages staring at the shadow of that indent till he had almost seen the head that had made it.

And finally, finally, when everything is silent, John puts the cup down, the cold tea drained and leaving a bitter taste on the roof of his mouth. He goes to the sofa, switching off lights as he goes. He doesn't need them. Knows where all the obstacles are already.

 


	4. Four

He wakes up and it's still dark. He fumbles for his phone, winces as it clunks loudly against the coffee table. Three thirty-eight. His back is stiff and his neck won't straighten out. He groans, pushing himself upright, wonders how Sherlock manages to lay on the sofa for hours a day.

The haze of light from the street leaves the room touched in yellow. It looks like a photograph done in sepia. He makes his way to the kitchen in the illumination it offers and swallows some water to rid his mouth of its stickiness, then slips into the bathroom.

The glass door to Sherlock's room is still open. It is very dark with the curtains drawn and when he doesn't hear anything John can feel himself start to panic. He takes an almost unwilling step forward, suddenly unsure of what's real. What's imagined. He is trying to remember what he's doing here and all he can do is wish to God its shadows would reveal something real to him. The blood behind his eyes is becoming fact, transformed into a slowly leaking trail on the pavement in front of St Bart's. He is looking for Sherlock and he suddenly doesn't know whether or not he'll find him.

It is over in a second. That moment of dysphoria fading as soon as he hears the unconscious sigh from the depths of the shadows, the soft shuffle of bed sheets. But it is enough to send his heart racing, the oxygen hitching in his lungs, so that he is clinging to the door frame and trying not to fall to his knees. The world narrows and wavers and John struggles to keep himself upright, screaming at himself in his own head, a litany of _idiot, twat, git, stupid, stupid, stupid, get it together, get it together, how fucking pathetic are you._ By the time he can breathe again he's perched on the edge of the tub, clutching his head in his hands, but he's not on the floor and that's an achievement of a very real kind.

As soon as he can stand he shuts the glass door. Leaves the light off as he relieves himself. His hands are shaking though and he makes a mess and he curses softly to himself as he crawls around in the dark afterwards cleaning up, wondering why he doesn't turn on the light. When the floor is clean, he starts to clean the rest of the bathroom, too. It takes an hour, because it is dark and he is trying to be quiet and because he is thorough. When he's finished and the air and his hands smell of the vinegar that Mrs Hudson keeps stashed under all the sinks in the house, he is both incredibly awake and aching with exhaustion. He flexes his neck, working the stiffness from it still, and wishes he could go to sleep.

He's terrified, though. Unreasonably. He opens the glass door and stands there, listening to Sherlock breathing in the dark. After a while, he sits down, framing himself in the doorway. His eyes get used to the relative darkness of Sherlock's bedroom and soon he can see the lump on the bed, can see as well as hear when he shifts underneath the sheets. Around seven, when the first glimpses of the day can be seen blinking uncertainly in the crack of the bedroom curtain, John is able to pick out the specifics of Sherlock's curls, the sliver of white skin between where the hair ends and the blanket begins. He thinks of touching it, of tracing its line with his fingertips. He wonders what it tastes like and he imagines the dry feel of it on the tip of his tongue. He closes his eyes, feels the guilt associated with such imaginings. It's been a long time since he's let himself think of these things. Since Mary. Since the night he decided to propose to her as a way of escape and acceptance and penance. It doesn't always work, of course. He's woken up, sweating and aching and in tears and even when he can't remember the dream he knows what it was about. Those are the days he can't look at himself. When he would get out of bed in the dark with the lights off because he was horrified by the idea of seeing the face on the other side of the bed and knowing it wasn't Sherlock's. Hating himself for doing this to himself, to Mary, when he owed both of them so much better.

It doesn't matter now, of course. Things have changed too much. He imagines his tongue on Sherlock's neck now and tries to eradicate the guilt that comes with it. He thinks of that dry kiss from hours before and tries to figure out if it was real or not, if he'd just imagined it. Sherlock sighs in bed and the sound of movement makes John open his eyes.

Sherlock is watching him, eyes dark and blinking blearily in the dimness. They are preternaturally bright and John wonders how much of that is due to his own obsessive focus.

“John?” Sherlock's voice is cracked and deep with sleep, the consonants a little bit slurred.

John doesn't say anything, doesn't move. He wonders if perhaps if he stays where he is, completely still, Sherlock will go back to sleep, forget he saw him at all. John can slink off, pretend he was never here, go back to his white flat in Leytonstone and remember who he is.

“John.” Sherlock again, his voice stronger, a hint of impatience. “What are you doing?”

John stares at him, at a loss. He has no idea.

There is a silence as they look at each other, Sherlock growing more awake by the second. Only his head and the tops of his shoulders are above the blanket and John can see the edge of his collarbone. Wonders if the blood is still there from earlier, dried now, a small brown spot that will need to be scraped off with the edge of a nail or the flat of a tongue.

“Did you sleep?” Sherlock asks, and John is almost relieved that this is a question he knows the answer to.

“Not tired,” he says, his voice breaking from disuse and the tension in his throat.

Sherlock stares at him and John can almost feel himself being deduced, as if it's something physical that happens.

“Why didn't you just go upstairs?” Sherlock finally says.

John rolls his eyes, doesn't say anything. Tries not to feel like a sullen teenager and fails.

“Idiot,” Sherlock says flatly and shuffles back until half the bed is free. He lifts the blanket and the pale line of his torso is revealed, wreathed still in shadows and lacking the details that the light would give it. It is an invitation, though John isn't precisely sure to what.

“John,” Sherlock says warningly when John doesn't move.

John stares at him, at the boredom and expectation on his face, at the bare skin he imagines tasting.

“What—” he manages to croak.

“Whatever you want,” Sherlock says impatiently. Then a moment later when John still hasn't moved, “It's getting cold,” in a familiar, petulant voice.

John snorts. “Yeah, alright,” he says and struggles to his feet. He uses the door frame to pull himself up because he is stiff, his muscles unwilling to move after so long in one position, his bones, pressed for so long against the hard floor, ache.

He limps to the bed, stares down at Sherlock. It's an uncomfortable position to be in and he has trouble meeting the challenge in those eyes. His gaze flickers down, to the collarbone revealed and he sees the bit of blood dried in the shadow of its curve. He concentrates on that as he first sits on the edge of the mattress, then swings his legs up and lays back.

The pillow is warm where Sherlock's head had been. It smells like him, like the shampoo he uses. Like he's never been gone at all. John is fully clothed and he lays there, inhaling Sherlock's scent as he settles stiffly on the bed at his side. With a huff, Sherlock drops the blanket to cover him and John is suddenly incredibly aware of the fact that he is under the covers with a naked Sherlock.

“Sherlock,” he says, or tries to. His tongue is too large and it stumbles over the syllables and sticks to the roof of his mouth.

“Go to sleep, John,” Sherlock says and John can feel him turn over, the settling of that long body at his side. Inches away. Its heat sears into him and leaves him warm until almost against his will he can feel his muscles start to loosen, the tension begin to drain. He's exhausted. He's so tired. The idea of lying in bed beside Sherlock is so surreal that he doesn't quite notice when his eyes start to close and the reality slips into dreaming.

 


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look an update! sorry this is short. more today, though, i promise! also yes, i added more chapters, because i am like that.

There is the stench of blood. Everything is red. He tastes iron. Smells copper.

He doesn't know where it comes from. He's on his knees trying to find the spot, to scrub it out, but everything is the same colour and he can feel Mary watching him. She's standing behind Sherlock's chair and waiting for him.

_Hurry up._

I need to find him.

_He's not here. He's gone. Hurry up, John._

Please. Just let me look.

There's blood. There's always blood. It's how he knows he's dreaming now.

He crawls frantically over the red carpet, knows he has to hurry. He doesn't have much time. But it's hard, everything the same colour, everything red, the carpet seeping into the wood seeping into the air seeping into the chairs seeping into him. Everything. He squints, then widens his eyes, trying to find the edges but it's all gone.

He feels something wet blooming under his hands and he knows he's found it. The spot. The place Sherlock died. The moment at which his life left him and he stopped being _Sherlock,_ just a collection of fingers and livers and flesh. They're in the fridge now, neatly partitioned and stored. He stares at them, the refrigerator door open, the harsh light of the single bulb turning them grotesque. Details he's never noticed. The scars on the knuckles of every finger, ten of them, laid out in neat rows on a baking tray and covered in cellophane. A blister on the heel of the left foot. A pimple just to the left of the nose. The head is in the middle, of course, staring straight out at John as he stands with the refrigerator door open, letting the cold leak out, letting the pieces of Sherlock rot. The blue eyes are closed and John is waiting for them to open.

_Don't be stupid, John. Close the door._

John turns. Sherlock is peering through his microscope, not even looking at him. John closes the door, knows he right, that Sherlock needs to stay preserved.

What are you looking at? he asks.

 _You,_ Sherlock says. _Do you want to see?_

John doesn't, but he's looking through the microscope anyway, the light white and bright, the slide empty.

There's nothing there.

 _Ah, right. Sorry,_ Sherlock says, and reaches to the place on his chest where the blood is pooling and scrapes some up with his finger tip. He pulls the slide out, smears the blood on the empty glass, puts it back. _How about now?_ he says.

John peers into the microscope but something's wrong, all he sees is red again and its spilling over, the blood gathering, the cells multiplying, working in a furious frenzy till its dripping over the edge of the slide and onto the table.

 _Careful,_ Mary says from beside him, _You're losing it._

It's everywhere now. It is flowing off the edge of the table and covering the floor. John can feel the panic well up, the horror. This is everything. He needs to stop it, collect it, gather it together.

_John, just stop._

No. I need to do this.

_Stop it, John._

No. No. No. I need to do this. I need to find him.

_John._

No!

There is a weight on him, the familiar contour of a hand on his shoulder, on his chest. He pulls away. Mary flinches back and there is anger in her face when she smiles. She is covered in blood, in Sherlock's blood, in him.

 _Don't be an idiot,_ she says, but he's not. He has to stop it. It's getting higher, the blood, above his knees, his thighs, growing hot between his legs and climbing past his waist to his chest.

It is a weight. It is such a weight. He can't move. Mary is already almost gone, lapped up in the rising tide. He watches her eyes, mocking and cold, as they slip away under the red and are gone. He's next. It's nearly time. But he can't go, not yet. Baker Street isn't safe, isn't secure. It is only a matter of time before the blood starts to drip into the streets and Sherlock will be gone, diluted over an entire city, lost to the traffic and the noise and the emptiness and John knows he has to save him. He has to keep him safe.

 _Don't be an idiot, John,_ Sherlock says, but John is tired. John is tired of being an idiot. John is tired of being the one left. Almost too tired to fight, but this is Sherlock. This is Sherlock he needs to save. He lashes out and


	6. Six

_Air. Air._ He's is breathing, pulling in great gasps. There is light, seeping in through the curtains and turning everything yellow, the bed spread, the blankets, the opposite wall. Sherlock's wall. _Sherlock._

“Sher—” His voice fails, the second syllable catching unfinished in his throat. His left hand hurts, the aching throb of bruised bone that comes from having hit something too hard.

_Sherlock._

“John,” hoarse and nasal, oddly muffled.

Sherlock is on the floor, crouched beside the bed with his face in his hands. Red droplets slip between his fingers, eyes light and wide and staring.

“Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.”

John fumbles with the sheets, his clothing catching and sticking in their folds. He drags them half way round the bed before they fall away, their friction giving up. He kneels on the floor, beside Sherlock, who is staring at him, eyes less wide, the pupils back to normal. Pain instead of shock. The blood is dripping from under his hands, seeping between his fingers and dying the skin red. He looks like a painting gone hideously wrong, a colour improperly mixed. He pulls at Sherlock's wrists, something clamouring in him to get out that he ignores. There's blood everywhere.

Sherlock's hands fall away and in the dim light it's difficult for John to tell. The entire lower half of his face is smeared red but the only stream, dark and thick, pours from his nose, flowing steadily down where it catches on his lips and parts in estuaries down his chin.

“Sherlock. Fuck. Fuck. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“'S fine,” Sherlock says, then grimaces when the blood slides into his mouth, clamping his lips together again.

John helps him up, pulls him to his feet. They leave a trail of fresh blood along the floor before they reach the bathroom and John sits Sherlock down on the seat of the toilet. He gets towels, cold water. Presses them into Sherlock's hands and pinches his fingers at the bridge of his nose. The skin feels hot under his own and Sherlock, the towel bunched under his noise, stares unwavering at John while they wait for the bleeding to stop.

It's unnerving, Sherlock's stare. But John focuses on it, on keeping his own gaze averted, on his fingers and that skin, on the shadow of dark hair curling down towards him only to spring away at the last second. He traces each lock downwards, judges its trajectory and its distance, imagines their sentience in the way they leap from his touch. He imagines them laughing at him, reaching, never making contact. A cruel mockery in their non-existent voices.

“John.”

John blinks, looks down at those startling eyes.

“It's stopped,” Sherlock says. His voice is still nasal and he speaks carefully, trying not to move his face too much. The towel, dyed red, is in his lap, his fingers brown where they clutch at it, a bright spot of crimson still visible between the finger and the thumb on his right hand.

John looks away. Goes to the sink without a word and runs warm water into a clean towel. He kneels in front of Sherlock, the warmth from the towel quickly leeching away between his hands, and starts to clean his face.

“I can do this,” Sherlock says, his voice too careful.

“I want to look first.”

“It's not broken.”

“Just shut up, Sherlock.”

Sherlock does, goes back to staring, but this time it's not difficult to keep from meeting that gaze. John concentrates on each careful swipe, removing the worst of the blood. It feels like shaving again, broad strokes over the neck and jaw, shorter smaller ones over the chin and upper lip, almost-caresses that clear the cheeks. The lips John saves for last. He takes the last clean corner of the towel and with a hand that has nothing to do with being a doctor he raises the towel and outlines each lip with his thumb. The blood sits in the cracks and doesn't come away. He does it again, less gently, wiping vertically this time, but its settled into the creases of the skin, lodged in the corners and going nowhere. He presses again, harder this time, and when they're still not clean, still stained red, John starts to scrub, dragging at the flesh with the rough terrycloth till it turns all the way crimson again and Sherlock is pulling away with a snarl, his hands on John's wrists and holding him there.

“John!”

John blinks. He feels like he's just been woken up and everything is red again. The traces of blood are all over Sherlock's face, the front of his shirt stiff and brown, his hands a different colour. And it's getting on John, the blood. He looks at them, where the blood has gotten inside the pores and has spread like a disease across his flesh. He pulls away from Sherlock, disgust curling his face.

“I'm fine,” Sherlock is saying. “I'm going to wash.”

John nods, not caring, only vaguely understanding. He is backing away, nodding with a clenched jaw and trying not to scream. He leaves the bathroom backwards and shuts the door behind him. Creating a barrier. Putting something solid between him and the blood that is everywhere. Something to stop it. To keep it from escaping. To contain it and keep it there. Except that it's on him, too. It's all over him, in the pores of his hands, spattered on his wrists and his shirt, in sullen drops on the material of his trousers.

He can feel something in his throat, trying to get out. Something solid needing to be expelled. He can't let it out. He doesn't know what it is. What it will do. He clamps down around it and feels a whimper escape by accident and he clutches at his face, fingers digging into the skin around his mouth, holding it in by sheer physical force.

He can smell the blood so clearly now. It's staining his cuffs, his hands. He starts to pluck at the material, trying to loosen it where it's dried to his skin. He keeps plucking till it's off, till it's tearing, till buttons start to fly off and he's dragging at his belt, flinging it away as if it's a snake, wrestling at the buttons on his trousers till they fall loose and he kicks them away, watching them hit the wall as if something alive has just crumpled and died. But it's not enough. Not enough. It's on his socks, from where he picked it up from the floor, on his pants and his vest from where his hands have brushed against the material. He drags it all away, fighting the elasticity of the material, breathing hard through his nose to keep control. And finally it's gone, it's all gone, except that his hands are still red, a spot on his thigh where it had soaked through the material and left its mark, the finger marks on his face from when he had clutched there. He stumbles to the kitchen. To the sink. The water rushing from the faucet is a miracle and he puts his hands under it, feeling the cold slowly turn to hot. Too hot, but the blood is still there, still insidious and sullen in every crack of his fingers. He is shivering, his whole body shaking at the shock of the temperature. It burns. It almost feels too cold, but he can see how the blood is washing away, slowly becoming less. It is still in his pores though he needs the heat for that, to open his pores, to clean them out. Scrub at them. Till every cell is gone.

The grip on his shoulders startles him and he gives a cry, lashing out. He misses though, falling back against a body, crashing to the floor in a struggling heap. Long limbs encircle him, clamp down and keep him still. He yells, frustration and anger. There is blood still. He can smell it. Taste it. Copper and iron and heat.

_“John!”_

_Sherlock._

He stops fighting. Falls immediately still in the circle of arms and legs, suddenly familiar, their paleness, the thickness of muscle and tendon pressed against his own.

“Sherlock.”

“John. Oh God, John. Your hands.”

John frowns. Doesn't know what this is about. Except that his hands are suddenly hurting, a slowly waking pain. They're red, bright red, swollen and stiff, a throbbing, stinging ache that is taking over everything. He is sweating, panting now, a quiet keen at the back of his throat.

_“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.”_

He is so angry at himself. He is so angry. What was he thinking?

“John?”

_Sherlock. Sherlock._

“Water,” John croaks. “I should—I need—” the pain is closing up his throat and he clamps his teeth together, shakes his head viciously against its onset. He is shivering but he isn't cold.

“Hospital,” Sherlock says, something hollow in his voice.

“No!” John says, forcing it out. “'S fine. Cool water. Fine.”

“John—”

“Please.”

The cage of limbs come unlocked and suddenly John is being pulled up, a chair dragged forward from the table and he's placed on it, right beside the sink where Sherlock is fiddling with the taps. The steam from the rush of water dissipates, cools. He puts the plug in and the sink starts to fill. Sherlock doesn't wait for it. Grabs John's wrists and thrusts them roughly under the spout.

The immediate pain is almost worse that the burn, but rapidly it starts to feel better until the pain is almost gone and the lump at the back of John's throat unknits itself and he can breathe, his teeth unclenching. He sits there, his wrists in Sherlock's hands, leaning against the counter, against Sherlock, and remembers how the body works and realises with a dim concern that he's naked and that Sherlock is only wearing a towel. There's nothing they can do about that now, though. Nothing left to be done. He let's himself sink further into the soft heat of Sherlock's side. And why not. Why not.


	7. Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh why do i keep making this longer. i'm so sorry.

He drifts. Slow motion. Something underwater. Nothing is real right now. That’s okay. He’s okay with that.

The tap is off. The kitchen strangely quiet. His hands tingle, burn even with the layer of ointment. Aloe vera. Something. Doesn’t matter. Sherlock is wrapping them, gauze orbiting. Gravity and Sherlock’s deft fingers causing it to settle. John looks like he’s wearing gloves. He tries to bend his fingers and gets snapped at in response.

This isn’t real. His hands burn under bandages and ointment, red swollen skin. Not too bad. He’s tired, though. Doesn’t know why. He slept for ages. Didn’t he?

“I slept.”

Sherlock’s light eyes glitter up towards him, slightly surreal. Doesn’t answer. Tucks the end of the gauze under a fold and leaves the rest of the roll on the floor.

John sighs. “You know you could just pick it up.”

Sherlock scowls. Scrambles inelegantly to his feet. He kicks the roll of gauze and it unravels across the kitchen floor to disappear beneath the fridge.

“Bed,” Sherlock says. “Now.”

“I slept,” John says again. Sure of it this time. He’s looking at the gauze. The white trail vanishing into the dark.

Sherlock stands above him. Narrows his eyes. John can see the intent behind them and he briefly considers challenging it. But Sherlock’s chest is bare and the mark on it is red and hot and still so new.

“Bloody hell,” John huffs, pushes himself upright. Stumbles. His legs feel very far away.

Sherlock’s arms are there, naked skin against his naked skin. There is nothing between them. A towel. Tucked around Sherlock’s waist. Incredibly insecure. John wants to tug it away but he doesn’t know if he can reach. He tries anyway. Giggles when he misses.

Sherlock’s face is impassive when he glances down but the edge of exasperated amusement can just be discerned if one knows him well. John knows him well.

He knows him very well.

“Hang on,” he says. Tries to stop but is propelled onwards to where he’s dumped unceremoniously onto the bed. He falls backwards, into white sheets still kicked up from earlier. They’re a mess. He should straighten them. He should, but for some reason he’s horizontal and everything looks a bit strange.

At the foot of the bed, Sherlock is untangling blankets and spreading them out. He snaps one straight and it drifts down, right on top of John who is sprawled in the middle of the bed. Immediately the world goes dark and muffled and John giggles. It’s like hide and seek. Like being born. A second later the sheet’s pulled back and the mattress dips by his head. Firm arms around him and he can feel himself being dragged, pulled the right way around till his head is on a pillow that smells like Sherlock but also smells like himself.

“Sherlock,” he says, but the name sounds funny. He says it again, “Sherlock.” But it doesn’t seem to help. “Shuuuuur. Lock.” He traps the _k_ on the bottom of his mouth with his tongue.

Sherlock is fighting his own battle with pillow and blanket at his side. They are both under the same blankets and this time there’s nothing separating them. Skin inches from skin. John knows this is just asking for trouble.

“Sherlock.” There. That’s better. That sounded normal. “Sherlock.”

“John. Sleep.”

“Nope. We need to talk.”

“We will. Later.”

“Laaaaaay. Tuh. Er.” John stops. His brow crinkles as he remembers what he was going to say earlier. “You. Drugged me.”

“Astute.”

“Shouldn’t have. We need to talk.” He’s impressed with how that came out. Rational. Sober. Not drugged at all.

“Later.”

“Nope.” This is important. He’s sure this is important.

Beside him, Sherlock sighs. A bored sound. John knows what that sound means. It means long walks and mind palaces and bullets in the wall and cigarette smoke and trouble. So much trouble. The inches between the nakedness closes as Sherlock rolls towards him. A long naked limb drapes itself over him, drags him close. A long naked body presses against his. It’s very warm. Far warmer than John was expecting. He brings his hands up to feel that arm, to test the temperature but his hands are bandaged so he just paws clumsily at them instead, patting them reassuringly like a puppy that’s strayed somewhere it’s not supposed to be.

“Good,” John says.

“Shut up, John.” Sherlock’s voice is very close. John feels him breathing on his neck and its warm. Not as warm as his body, though. Under the blankets. Right against his own. He tries to concentrate on its contours but it’s all a bit much right now. Just a general radiation of heat. He’s very soft, though. Incredibly soft. Unless that’s the mattress. John frowns again. Yes, that’s the cotton sheets. He’s gotten _up_ wrong again.

“I’ve gotten up wrong again.”

Sherlock makes a noise, something deep in his throat. A lazy sound. Uninterested. John knows it’s time to be quiet. Sherlock is thinking. Thinking is good. Better than bullets. Better than walks. He can wait this out. Wait for Sherlock to come back.

He settles in, drawing downwards and inwards where the heat is coming from and where there’s another softness, expected and unexpected. Long and warm and safe. John will wait here. Where it’s safe. Till Sherlock comes home.


	8. Eight

He swims towards the surface. Air and light and a throbbing insistent pain. He is aware of being too hot, a sheen of sweat making the fitted sheet stick to the skin of his back. There's a weight on him. A good weight. Reassuring. He knows it's not Mary. The possibility doesn't even cross his mind. She doesn't belong here, in 221B, where the lemon-scented odour of cleaning products, the faint rose of air fresheners that had characterised their home in Croyden, are as foreign as the nothing smell of the temporary flat in Leytonstone. Instead, the faint chemical presence of Baker Street exudes from the pores of the room and leak into the air. An underlying current of gun powder and laundry softener. The smell of Sherlock, of sheets gone slightly musty, of sweat, and sleep.

He knows this place, knows where he is. The weight of a second body pressed along his side, helping to create a furnace out of too many blankets, doesn't surprise or shock him in the least. He wonders if it should, but it seems ridiculous to worry about it now. They are both naked and John can trace the curve of a thigh, the sharp jut of a hip and a knee, the firmer territory of a chest just beside where an arm is draped, containing him, keeping him. He can feel body hair brushing over sensitive skin, the slickness of sweat in the places they connect.

John gives a deep sigh, bordering the edge of a yawn. It sets off a lightening rod of pain in his head. It gives a brief and violent throb between his temples and he freezes, falling still till it dissipates. At his side, Sherlock shifts. The weight of a head being lifted and John knows he's being observed.

“Do you still want to sleep?” Sherlock's voice, gravelly and very deep.

John cracks an eye open to look at him and the long pale oval of his face comes reluctantly into view, almost unreadable in the dimness. There are no lights on in the flat, only the last fading fingers of the day reaching past the curtains to save them from the dark.

John considers that face for a moment. The eyes are almost completely in shadow but John knows that expression, the scientist gauging the results of an experiment that's not quite reacting the way he's expected.

“No,” John says, starts to turn his head to search out the time on the alarm clock beside the bed but thinks better of it when his head gives an insistent lurch and he squeezes his eyes shut, riding out the wave of nausea till it passes. He becomes aware of his hands for the first time, heavy and useless feeling. He's afraid to move them, as if moving them will wake the pain he knows is waiting. It sings at the edge of his awareness, a single high note that's not nearly as insistent as he'd have thought.

“John?”

“What did you give me?”

“Something I've been working on. How do you feel?”

“Like shit. How?”

“How? Oh. In your tea.”

“What tea?”

“The tea I made you while you were soaking your hands.”

John tries to think. It's difficult. He just wants to lay there and pretend he's dead. Images knock unexpectedly through the tight wall of his consciousness, fall spiralling away before John can gather more than an impression of colour and sound. Blue eyes too bright; a firm pressure of hands around his wrists; the glorious relief of a sink full of cool water; a white roll of gauze disappearing beneath the fridge. “I don't remember tea.”

There's a pause. It's the scientist that answers. “Interesting.”

John doesn't say anything. He should. Ideas, impressions, emotions gather waiting for the words that will reveal them but there aren't any that he can remember right now. He lays in the heat and sweat of Sherlock Holmes, beneath the comfortable weight of his existence draped over top of him, and struggles to put the pieces together. But there's something missing, or something broken. The words aren't there. The edges worn away and changed till none of them fit anymore, not like he wants them to. Not like they're supposed to.

“John?” Sherlock's voice. Uncertain. Insecure. A child asking for forgiveness.

It's not there though. John doesn't have any to give away. Not right now. Maybe never again. It's among the words that have changed out of all recognition. “Why?” he asks instead, too tired to flatten his voice. He sounds exactly as he is: exhausted, thoroughly finished, without any expectations of satisfaction or explanation.

“Why?” Sherlock repeats, though John knows he understands the question, is just buying himself time.

John doesn't say anything but he's still surprised when Sherlock breaks first. Unusual in their silences.

“You were hysterical. In pain.”

“And you couldn't think of another way.”

“This was easiest.”

 _Easiest._ The word hurts, though John's not sure how. It stands out deformed in his collection of lost sounds, jagged edges where there hadn't been before, a glint of red along its razored sides.

“How do you feel?” Sherlock asks, and John debates answering him, unsure what's driving the question. He needs water, though, and Nurofen.

“Headache. Nausea,” he finally answers truthfully, his voice clinical, much as he suspects the question to have been.

But when he opens his eyes and looks at Sherlock's face there's something shocked there, something open, filled with regret.

“I'm sorry,” Sherlock says, the inflection awkward but sincere.

More than anything, John wants to believe him. But even that word, _sorry,_ has grown moss-edged and covered in dents.

“Right,” he says, and closes his eyes again. Sherlock is warm beside him, so warm. John presses closer to him, trying to eliminate the impossible chasm that separates them, cells vibrating at a frequency too high. That atom's worth of space containing universes in its narrow breadth.

“John.”

His name again. That word. And John notices that it's the only thing that Sherlock's said that hasn't been tarnished in some way. _John._ It settles like an anchor and for a moment the world is still. He opens his eyes again. A pale expanse of chest comes into view, the ridge of a clavicle pressed against his orbital socket.

“Stay,” Sherlock says. Also without taint. John pulls back, peels himself from the warmth so he can see him properly. His head gives a persistent throb that turns his vision black but he makes himself look. Look hard. Trying to pick out the places he's never been able to see before. All the edges that will let him peel them back.

He looks harder. Considers what he sees. Tries to remember all the things he's learnt. All the lessons forced on him over months, over years, trying to caution him to go slow. To stay here. On this side. Where it's safe. Where he can still be whole.

“Why?” he finally says again. A conversation in syllables. Entire novels in the bullet holes of every ended sentence.

Sherlock opens his mouth. Silence. For the first times glimpses the words he's always used and sees them altered, their meanings no longer clear. For the first time sees something of what John sees.

Abruptly wordless, Sherlock cuts them off before they come out. And instead, with silence, leans forward and kisses him again.


	9. Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay I PROMISE chapter ten will be the last one this time!

It’s like the bathroom again, sudden, almost passionless, a little bit astray. When Sherlock pulls back, John just stares at him for a second, trying furiously to decide what he himself wants.

This could be such a bad idea. Such a terrible, _destructive,_ life-destroying idea.

But only if he lets it. He looks at Sherlock, the almost impassive expression on that familiar face as he waits for John’s reaction, demanding input before daring an opinion. John looks hard. Harder. Sees the edges and pulls.

And for a moment, for the briefest of heartbeats, John sees a brightness almost wholly unfamiliar. Incandescent. Breathtaking. _Hope._

 _This is a terrible idea,_ John thinks, but he’s already reaching up with a bandaged hand, pulling Sherlock stiffly down towards him again.

Sherlock’s almost tentative this time, now that John’s actually engaged, now that they can both see it coming. It seems to take forever, a six year long pilgrimage spanning atoms-worth of space. They vibrate on the edge of it for what seems like hours. Then finally, _finally,_ after aeons and ice ages, there is the heat of flesh that isn’t his, the sharp edge of chapped skin, the softness afterwards. And pressure. Glorious pressure. Warmth that slides above the edge of the blanket to settle somewhere in his chest, his throat, like fingertips over his jaw to cover his face.

The first movement is breathtaking, a symphony done in strings and major notes. Sherlock’s lips shift tentatively against his, a question, and John answers by parting his lips, letting him in. There is the moisture of breath now added to the heat, a shivering gasping inhalation of each other’s oxygen, the trading of something vital. When the heavy wetness of a tongue presses for entrance a moment later, John doesn’t question it. He opens with a sigh. Resigned but grateful. Overjoyed. Afraid.

Everything seems to shift a bit. Something seems to fall away. Sherlock is closer without having moved. Almost silent, his eyes flickering briefly before shuttering. The last bright glance John gets of them before his own eyes slide shut, just too much information to take in at once. He makes a sound that he’s unsure even came from him until Sherlock makes his own sound in response, something deep that vibrates upwards from his chest to settle on John’s tongue. Something healing and shattering, that shakes John to pieces before it settles him firmly into place.

Sherlock is heavy on top of him. Limb by limb he is overtaking John. An arm joined by a foot followed by a leg planted firmly between his own. The torso comes next, shifting to settle over top him. Sherlock’s elbows keep John’s chest free, leave him able to breathe, but there is a weight on John’s hips that keep him pinned down and his hands, useless beside him, are trapped under Sherlock’s. He feels caged but unutterably calm. Some vibration at his centre coming to a slow stop as if the sheer weight of Sherlock has pressed it into silence. He feels still. The world feels still. For the first time in months, in years, in aeons, the vertigo goes away and incredibly, miraculously, John looks at the edge and understands that he doesn’t need to jump.

“We need,” John says, between breaths, between kisses, “to talk.”

“We will,” Sherlock says, breathless against John’s lips. “But not now.” He presses in again, harder this time and John recognises the gesture for defeat, for the demands of the victor, handed over without protest. He takes them, gives them back with a moan, and it’s an act of faith that pushes his hips upwards, where they meet with Sherlock’s underneath the sheets, and Sherlock makes an incomprehensible noise and clamps down on John’s lip with his teeth.

John inhales. Tastes iron, smells copper. With a snarl he snaps upwards, searching blindly for Sherlock’s lips but they’re gone, Sherlock stretching upwards and away and John opens his eyes to see those blue lights glittering mockingly down at him, illuminating everything.

“Greedy,” Sherlock scolds and shifts his weight to release one of John’s wrists, a false sort of freedom because a moment later it reappears between them, where John’s penis is suddenly engulfed in the unfamiliar warmth of that incredibly familiar hand. He gives an involuntary cry, his hips stuttering upwards. He feels Sherlock’s penis pressing down against him, the shift that has it slipping between his legs where it pushes up below his balls and stays there. He’s swearing, loudly, in a single long string. His eyes are wide open now, his mouth gaping and it’s almost impossible to breathe, arched off the bed and trying hard to find whatever it is he needs.

Sherlock’s eyes are luminous when his hand starts to move. John doesn’t even try anymore. A noise that he didn’t know he could make building up and slipping out. He dimly wonders if he should be embarrassed. Sherlock is smiling wickedly as his hand slides over John’s length, first slowly, then a little faster as the precum starts to build and it becomes a little easier and John is gasping now, beyond shame. The point of pressure below his balls, where the tip of Sherlock’s cock is pressing upwards, shifts downwards ever so slightly. Inches. Less than inches. And suddenly it is there, right there, _right there_ —

And John comes with a shout, without warning, without even having realised he was close. Sherlock kisses him through it, his hand slowing and then stilling where it holds his softening penis.

Only when the last of the aftershocks have ended does Sherlock’s hand pull away and John can feel it sidle downwards, to where the head of his own cock is still pressed between John’s legs. John feels when Sherlock slips his hand over himself.

It takes seconds. Sherlock is so close that it takes barely ten strokes before he gives a heart-wrenching moan and he is coming and John feels it, a sudden bloom of heat against his hole, the uneven pressure of Sherlock’s orgasm trying to invade. John feels marked. But for the first time he starts to wonder if perhaps he hasn’t marked in turn.

It’s a new feeling. Not so much being owned, but owning. Being allowed to own.

Sherlock has collapsed against his chest, gasping into his neck, heat and damp adding to the furnace that the blankets have become. They are both soaked, in sweat, in semen. It’s disgusting. It’s incredible. John, for the first time in months, puts his arms around another person, and for the first time ever, allows himself the latitude to hold on.


	10. Ten

They are a warm bay of heartbeats, pulsing at the shore. Capillaries and veins of currents that suck at their feet and drag them deeper. Deeper. John would stay here forever, waiting for the hurricane to descend. He thinks of Mary and remembers that storms used to be named after women. There was a reason for that, he thinks, but knows that's unfair. Thinks of the tsunami that is Sherlock, the long string of his disasters. John floating face down in his wake.

 _Unjust,_ he thinks, but the image is there, stubborn. He watches it for a moment then with an effort upends it, drains all the water out and leaves himself face up on the dry ground. Far off, the sun glitters between two clouds. The sky achingly blue.

"We need to talk,” John says.

Sherlock hums, a low sound from deep in his throat. It is lazy and seductive and John feels it vibrating against him.

"About Mary," Sherlock agrees.

John is too sated to feel annoyed by the perspicacity of the assumption, but he knows that ordinarily he would be. Instead he sighs, blinks rapidly and feels his eyelashes brushing against the skin of Sherlock's throat. It feels strange and he does it again until Sherlock shifts and John feels a hand thread through his hair, tightening slightly against his skull, regaining his attention.

"What are you going to do?" Sherlock asks. There is something in the undercurrents that John can't place. Something humble. Waiting.

John doesn't answer right away. His breath is slow, matching the rise and fall of Sherlock's chest. He wonders how long they can stay here, if they'll ever be missed. If they can drift here forever and let the world forget them. Forget the world in turn. It wouldn't work, of course. They would drive each other to murder within a week. The impossibility of the illusion makes something tighten in his chest, though, and his eyes prickle and absurdly John knows he's going to cry. He tries to pull away, stop this display of sentiment that is slowly picking him to pieces and stripping away his control, but the moment he tries Sherlock's arm tightens around him and Sherlock's face turns to him, nuzzling against his hair and the softest pressure of lips against his scalp leaves a mark that John is certain will be permanent and is absurdly glad.

"What will you do, John?"

"I won't kill her," John says, the only thing in the world that he is certain of. "I can't."

For a second Sherlock freezes, then in a strained voice. "I meant—I meant, will you stay with her?"

John's turn to freeze, and when he can move again he pulls away far enough to see Sherlock's face, which is deliberately expressionless but tellingly flushed. John can't even understand how they're having this conversation. He thinks of the thumb drive, even now in his coat pocket. He thinks of the things he'd seen on it.

Nothing.

There had been nothing there.

He thinks of his anger upon realising it. The sinking horror of how far he'd let himself get. Self-directed, always, but more too. Against her. Against Sherlock. Moriarty and Mycroft. Everyone. Everything. Only recently has he learnt how to blame others, a lesson learnt from Sherlock, when rage had finally outstripped his ability to martyr himself. He still forgets it sometimes. In the spotlight of two sets of eyes telling him that everything is his fault. Still, not so deep down, he is terrified that it is true. That they're right. He remembers the empty thumb drive and wonders, _did I ask for this?_

“John?”

“Hm.” He doesn't trust himself to speak right now. He was happy, for a few seconds there. For minutes, holding Sherlock and being held. Touch. That greatest gift. He'd wondered for so long if he was capable of it.

“Stay with Mary. I want you to.”

“Fuck off,” John says. He meant for it to be casual, but the venom that comes out with the words burns the back of his throat and has him flinching away. Sherlock's arm tightens, trying to hold onto him, and John ignores it, fights it when it feels like it won't let him go.

 _“Fuck off,”_ he says again. Anger, but also terror. Questioning himself, his own certainty. His own convictions. Sherlock, always making him doubt everything. He can feel the disgust now, rage crawling up to choke him, not quite able to associate the person who'd just said that to him with the man he had just had sex with, the man he's loved for far too many years without hope, without the smallest dream of reciprocation or fulfilment. And suddenly, fulfilled, he realises the horror of wondering if he's ever known him at all.

 _A dream,_ he thinks. _He's never really existed outside of your own head._

He can't breathe. The horror is deep, coming up from somewhere unfathomable that he hadn't even realised existed. The extent of his own stupidity. His own wishful thinking. The bedrock torn and ruptured and so quickly the vertigo is back, the edge looming close. The terror, the knowledge, that it's him who will send himself flying over it after all.

“Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you._ You. You do not make this decision. Neither of you.”

“John—” A hand, reaching out. John avoids it, his skin crawling at the thought of being touched. He nearly falls out of the bed trying to get away. Rolls to his feet and is across the room, trying to find his clothes, scattered still and spattered with blood.

Sherlock is on him before he reaches the door, long arms circling and containing, his body incredibly warm.

“Stop it. _John, stop._ Just. _Listen to me.”_

John is panting, his teeth clenched, the air pushing through. “She _lied,”_ John manages, the first item on a long, long list, growing longer every day.

“For God's sake, John,” Sherlock snarls. _“I_ lie.”

“Not about that.”

“Just. _Stop!_ Stop fighting me!”

“Fuck off,” John snaps, and with a heave sends Sherlock flying. He slams onto his back on the floor and John steps over him without a glance, kicks out when a hand reaches out for his ankle.

He bypasses his clothes, bloody in the hallway, stalks naked out through the kitchen and stops in the sitting room, lost suddenly in this familiar place. No idea where to go from here.

“John. Please.”

Sherlock. Standing in the divide between the kitchen. A hand raised. A plea, though, not to touch. His face is twisted. An expression John's only seen a handful of times in all the years he's known him.

“You have one minute.”

“Before what?” Sherlock demands. “You walk out without your clothes on?”

“Fifty seconds, Sherlock.”

Surprise, frustration flash across his face. He raises both hands now, begging for patience. “Just. _Trust me.”_

John stares at him, disbelief not even trying to disguise itself. “Trust?” John says. “When have you ever trusted me?”

“I have.”

“When? Tell me. When.”

“With everything.”

John just stares at him. Shakes his head slowly. Not enough. _Not enough._ “I'm done, Sherlock. I'm done. This is your last chance. All or nothing. This is the moment you decide. Either I'm in this all the way, or I'm gone.”

He means it. By God, he means it. The look of shock on Sherlock's face shows him how necessary it is.

“I can't—” Sherlock stutters. “I don't work that way. It's just easier—”

“Then _change!”_ John screams, can feel the rage twisting his face, his voice tearing at his throat. “Do you think this is about _easy? Do you think I am here because it is easy?_ I am not your fucking toy. I am not a fucking chess piece that you move around when you need me. I am not a piece in your _fucking strategy._ You do not make decisions for me. You do not _ever_ make decisions for me. I am your partner. I am _in this._ Or I am nothing. Your choice, Sherlock. Your _fucking choice._ So fucking. Make it.”

He is breathing hard, his throat aching from shouting but also from all the things stoppered up there, all the things he's trying not to let out. Years of pain. Of rage. Of hate. Against himself, against Sherlock, against the world. He's done. He's done being the one left behind.

Sherlock looks like he's been hit. He is frozen, stunned. Lost. He has never looked this way before and John's the one who did this. Who put that there. _Good,_ some savage part of him says, a churning revelation of someone else's pain. He knows he'll regret this, but he also knows that it needs to be done. That it needs to be said. That it needs to be believed. Because the edge is right there, so close, screaming his name and John, clutching the ground with bleeding fingers, will let himself be pushed there if something doesn't change.

And by increments, he sees the knowledge of it in Sherlock's face. That this time. Above every other time. It matters. It is important and John, staid and loyal John, is leaving.

Sherlock nods. Takes a breath. Like a mouse edging a room where a cat is sleeping he goes to his chair. The black leather creaks beneath his bare skin.

“You don't trust me,” he says when John looks at him, as if saying it out loud is the thing that makes it real.

John just looks at him. Hair flattened and destroyed. The darker bruises already appearing under his eyes from where John had hit him in his sleep. The swollen redness of his nose. John, seeing this man, this human, wants to touch him but he can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever again.

“Please sit,” Sherlock says. And then, closer to a whisper, “Please stay.”

John doesn't move. “I need to know. Before I sit.” Because he'll never get up again, he knows. Familiar by now with his own limitations.

Sherlock nods. “Yes. Of course. I promise, John.”

“What?” He needs to know. To know that Sherlock understands what he's asking.

Sherlock swallows. “I'll try,” he says.

Disappointment, searing, crippling. God that hurts. That fucking hurts. John turns away because he can't look at him any more.

“No!” The sticky sound of leather clinging to bare skin then a hand, cold and bloodless against his arm. He lets himself be turned around. Such a terrible idea. Blue eyes wide and serious and frightened. “I mean. I'll try. I mean, I'm not perfect. You may have to remind me sometimes. If I forget. If I screw up. But I'll try. John, I promise. I will tell you. But it doesn't always work that way. I don't always have a plan.”

John knows this is true. He nods before he can stop himself, before he can even consider it. But he wants to stay. He wants to stay so badly. And something has shifted again, something coming to settle. Something familiar and known, but with just enough difference that when he reaches out to touch it he is both reassured and relieved. He nods. Feels the edge recede, his fingers loosen their stranglehold on the earth. “Yeah,” he says. “Fine.”

“But you need to trust me, too,” Sherlock blurts, and something tells John he hadn't meant to say it.

John just looks at him. Tries to find an answer in the worn out words at his command. He doesn't say anything for a moment. Shakes off Sherlock's arm and walks around him to the worn red chair where he sits. It's like coming home. He releases a breath, lets it settle in the chemical smell of 221B.

“I don't know if I can,” he says.

For a moment there is silence. They are both a little stiff, a little frozen. A tableau of a scene depicting God knows what. A lover's quarrel. An ending. A beginning. Something hopeful or filled with despair. Two men waiting, the crossroads with their own personal Godot. Looming without a presence.

Then Sherlock nods. A simple gesture, filled with determination. "You will," he says. Takes his seat across from John, his skin sticking to the chair. They look at each other, a breath hanging between them, the eye of the storm. “You will,” Sherlock says again, and John hopes, prays with everything in him, that he's right.

“Now,” Sherlock says, and there is the glint of a smile, a question, a plea. “We need to talk about Mary.”

John looks at him, not sure if he needs to be angry again. Waiting, hopefully, for the next words to come. And a second later, after a pause that is more dramatic than hesitant, Sherlock's smile grows and his blue eyes glitter with joy.

“Listen, John. I have a plan.”


End file.
